across the universe
by shiksa goddess
Summary: i don't love you, but i always will / in which Austin and Ally are determined to figure out the meaning of "meant to be". post-Princesses & Prizes.


**title: across the universe  
>playlist: poison &amp; wine- the civil wars (if you ever pay attention to my playlists up here honestly listen to this song it is so great), the mess i made- parachute, breathe again- sara bareilles, you could be happy- snow patrol, untouchable- taylor swift<br>disclaimer: i do not own anything you may recognize, also this entire thing was written between the hours of midnight and three am on a school night so if there's spelling/grammar errors i am sorry  
>an: i realize that my past few stories have been super cliche but i have been meaning to write this story for ages but couldn't figure out how and then princesses & prizes came along and fueled the fire and then i watched a fanvideo using poison & wine and then i was like how can i **_**not **_**write this story?  
>also, all lowercase for stylistic purposes :')<br>**

* * *

><p>it starts with a girl, and it ends with a girl.<p>

* * *

><p>when they agreed to start seeing other people, he'd assumed that there was an extended non-verbal clause that said he'd start seeing other people first.<p>

it wasn't that he didn't respect her freedom and her choices and it wasn't that he _wanted_ her to be hung up on him indefinitely but maybe if she could've spent maybe like two more weeks getting over him that would've helped?

logan picks her up from the sonic boom one wednesday after her shift and ally smiles and logan hugs her and logan helps her into her raincoat before he brings her out into the drizzly evening in his beat-up toyota (for the record, austin would've hired a limo and a chauffeur and maybe some servants to carry her above the rain so she wouldn't get wet but y'know, it was whatever, toyotas are cool too) and austin waves goodbye and ally walks away.

"i'm not jealous, you know." he confirms, and dez nods.

"of course not, buddy." he reassures him, clapping a hand on his back.

"i just.. i guess it's just weird, you know? i just thought i'd be the first one to get another date, i guess."

dez just nods again. "well, you know, things happen." he shrugs.

austin watches through the glass doors as logan helps ally into the passenger seat of his car and continues staring long after they've left, thinking about her and them and what they used to be.

"i don't love her."

dez is gone by now, austin realizes, which as it turns out doesn't really matter because the only person he was _really _trying to convince was himself, and he was doing a really crap job at it, too.

"i don't love her." he says, tracing the outline of the hearts (a.m + a.d) that he and ally had engraved into the sonic boom counter when they'd first officially become a couple.

"i don't love her."

.  
>"i just miss her."<p>

* * *

><p>logan, in a sense, was perfect for her in all the ways that austin was not.<p>

logan was shy, logan wrote poetry (he said he'd never taken enough music lessons to be able to write songs though), logan understood the symbolism in _the scarlet letter _and logan cared about geometry and geography and, most importantly, he seemed to care about her.

"i'm not gonna lie to you, i'm kind of intimidated by you." logan blushes, chuckling softly.

ally laughs. "intimidated? by _me?_ why?"

he smiles widely at her over the table. "because! you're like this famous, incredibly talented, incredibly accomplished person and i am incredibly and utterly mediocre!" he says incredulously, as if this is all common knowledge and he can't believe she doesn't know that she has this kind of power over him.

"also because… i'm not austin moon. i know you dated him, and that he was kinda like your 'first love' or whatever, and i'm kind of scared that i'm not going to live up to him- i'm sorry, i'm probably embarrassing myself right now. i'll stop talking." logan blushes awkwardly, and ally feels a tugging at her heartstrings.

"austin? oh, no, that's entirely in the past, don't even worry about that." she says reassuringly. "i wouldn't even have come tonight if i didn't know i could commit."

"are you sure? cause i mean, he looked kind of mad when he saw us leaving together…"

ally shakes her head and places her hand on top of logan's. it feels sweaty and clammy, the complete opposite of austin's warm, big, confident hand that entirely enveloped hers and made her feel safe.

she's doing it already. she promised herself she wouldn't. she _promised _herself she wouldn't drag this sweet, innocent boy into her and austin's emotional mess by comparing one to the other and here she is, ten minutes into their first date and she's _already doing it. _

"logan, i'm going to be honest with you here, because if this is going to go anywhere, you deserve to know. austin and i…. were complicated. at first, we were just such good friends that i thought, you know, i'm so glad i have a guy in my life that is purely platonic, that i can tell anything to! then, inevitably, 'purely platonic' went to shit and i-i did love him, i'm not going to lie. i was in love with him, so insanely in love with him that i didn't know what to do with myself, and neither did he. we were so afraid of ruining what we had that we stopped ourselves from having _anything. _but we broke up for a reason, and all-in-all, it was probably-definitely-for the better."

she takes a deep breath and logan squeezes her hand that is wrapped in his.

"so yes. austin was, and is important to me. but he is purely my best friend, which i am entirely happy with, and i am entirely ready to see where you and i will go." she smiles, feeling as if a heavyweight had just been lifted off her chest.

she looks down at her menu. "so, what's good here?"

* * *

><p>by the time junior year ends and summer rolls around, ally and logan are in full swing and austin and ally were a thing of the past (at least romantically).<p>

austin doesn't know how he feels about this.

within the past four and a half months, he'd been on countless dates with numerous girls, very few of which he actually remembered the name of.

at some point along the line, he'd realized he was less concerned with who the girl was or how much he liked her, and more concerned with how well they could fit the gap that ally had left behind.

he can't believe he'd ever been the one to suggest that they'd be better off seeing other people.  
>he can't believe he'd let her go.<p>

logan was great for ally, and he knew it full and well. he couldn't even bring himself to hate logan, as much as he wanted to and as fervently as he may've tried, the guy was just so _nice _and so good to her and good _for_ her, better than he himself had ever been or ever could be.

he made her happy. this fact alone was what strained austin from telling her that he hated that she was with someone else.

he'd told her that he wanted her to be happy. because he did! he loved her so, so much, as a partner, as a friend, as a person, and he knew that she _deserved_ to be happy.

but didn't he, too?

over the summer, he meets a girl named lilly who is blonde and perky and happy and he stays with her until the second semester of senior year, which is when he realizes that as much as he may like her,

she's not ally dawson.

that's the problem. he meets so many girls on a daily basis that could easily be great for him, but none of them are ally and therefore, he cannot be with them.

he decides the only way he can get over ally is to be away from her for a long period of time. so on ally's eighteenth birthday in february, he announces to her, logan, trish, and dez that he's going to be going on an international tour (by himself this time) to promote his second album and yes, he loves and will miss all of them, no, he will not be coming back for prom, and no, he will not be there for graduation as he will be earning his diploma through his tour tutoring.

he sees ally's eyes well up with tears when he tells him and he sees her turn away from logan so that he won't ask her what's wrong and he feels his heart breaking.

he hadn't meant to hurt her.  
>maybe he had, though. maybe he'd hoped she'd remember what it felt like to miss him and to want for him, and maybe he'd hoped she'd beg him to stay only for him to be able to tell her no and maybe he'd hoped her heart would be just a little bit broken so that maybe she'd know what she'd (unintentionally) been doing to him for the past nine months but instead, his own heart breaks some more because he can't stand to know that he hurt her.<p>

"i can't believe you're doing this." she says, late that night when everyone else has gone home and it's just him and her in the practice room, just like old times. "why, why are you doing this? are you trying to prove something to yourself? are you trying to make a point?"

"i don't know, alls. i just need to be away from here for a little while." he says stoically.

"why!? what's so wrong with here!? these are our last few months all together austin, before we become adults and go off on our own separate ways and _why _do you want to make that harder for us, austin?"

"just think of it as one less goodbye you'll have to say at the end of the year." he shrugs, but then hot tears start streaming down ally's face and he can hardly remember times where he'd hated himself more.

ally shakes her head furiously. "god, austin, you are so selfish sometimes! god, you are so stupid." she exclaims, but it's more sadness than anger that tinges her voice.

she stands in the middle of the room, tears pouring down her face, and she's wearing the same blue-and-silver sparkly dress that she was wearing when she'd found out she couldn't come on the full moon tour with him and her hair is in that same side-bun-thing and he just looks at her as his heart sinks and he knows he's never going to love somebody as much as he's loved her.

"i'm going to miss you so much." she sobs, trying pointlessly to wipe tears off her face as more come streaming down.

she hasn't said 'i love you' to him since before they'd broken up, probably because she thought it would be too weird or too awkward or something but he _hears_ it swelling in her voice.

he walks over to her and wraps her in a huge hug and presses his lips to the crown of her head.

"i'm sorry, ally." he says.

he's sorry for hurting her and sorry for leaving her and sorry for loving her and sorry for letting her go and sorry for not being _able_ to really let her go.

"i'm so sorry."

* * *

><p>ally sits on the couch in her living room the next morning watching saturday morning cartoons.<p>

"well, my first full day of adulthood is going well." she says aloud to the empty air.

logan was set to come over in another hour, and he was bringing her favorite chocolates and a teddy bear despite having spent god knows how much on the diamond bracelet he'd given her for her birthday. but he'd brought her chocolate and teddy bears every time he knew she was sad, which, unfortunately, was so often that it had almost become a comfortable routine- plus she didn't have the heart to tell him that all the teddy bears were going to end up just piling up in her closet, taking up space.

he was so good to her. she prayed that someday, she could return the favor.

the doorbell rings forty-five minutes before it's supposed to. to her surprise, it's austin standing at her door and not logan.

"austin, i-"

he cuts her off by leaning in and kissing her. she knows she should shove him off, send him away and tell him that she doesn't want this, but she doesn't do any of these things. she can't find the strength within her.

austin's lips linger against her for another five seconds before he pulls away.

"i- just wanted to remember how that felt. i couldn't leave without doing that."

_yes you could've, _she thinks. _it was perfectly possible for you to go away on your goddamn international tour without kissing me without any warning and making me question my feelings for you and my feelings for logan and you could've just left without kissing me or ruining my entire life._

she says nothing, just stands in the doorway in her pajama pants and slippers and watches his car drive away and she stays there until logan's car shows up and parks in the same spot where austin's had been, as if he had never been there to begin with.

which is what she would've preferred.

logan greets her with his infectiously goofy grin and a quick kiss and he hands her her chocolates and stuffed animal and she nearly cries right then and there.

"are you okay?" he asks, wrapping his arms around her.

she shakes her head and buries her head into his chest, muffling her sobs with his shirt.  
>it makes her feel even worse, standing there with him holding her, because she felt like she belonged there- for now. when austin had kissed her, she felt like she could be in that moment forever.<p>

which was stupid, because she and austin had _tried _being together (albeit for approximately two weeks) and they knew it didn't work. she didn't know why, a year and a half later, she was standing there in the arms of her _boyfriend _clinging to the thought that _what if they could've worked?_

she thought back to her and logan's first date, when he had asked about the whole her-and-austin ordeal and she had told him it was 'entirely in the past'. the worst part was, she was being completely honest when she'd told him that. she was so sure that she was over austin and she couldn't believe that all he had to do was kiss her once more and suddenly the entirety of what she'd been telling herself the past year and a half was falling through the cracks.

once she had cried herself out so much she couldn't cry anymore, she took a deep breath and grabbed logan's hand.

"you know, holding your hand always made me so happy. so comfortable." she smiles, one last hot tear rolling down her face.

"yours was the first hand i held after austin's." she told him, and he looked at her quizzically, waiting for an explanation.

"i love holding your hand. i remember the first time i did it, it was so different from holding austin's but it still felt so comfortable and so right and i thought 'thank god. maybe this means i _don't _belong with austin. maybe this means i'm meant to love somebody else- to love you, logan."

ally feels the sobs coming up through her body again and she shivers, squeezing her eyes shut to prevent tears from spilling out again. logan ushers her to sit down on the couch.

"and i did. i do. i love you, so, so much. you are so perfect, so amazing-"

"but you're in love with austin." he interjects calmly, and ally laughs in spite of herself. it sounded even worse when somebody else said it.

"no. no- i don't know. i don't think so. i didn't think so at all, until, um, this morning. he kind of came by here and he didn't even _say_ anything to me, he just _kissed _me, and i didn't kiss him back, i don't even know if i wanted to, but i didn't push him away or tell him no and that tells me that _something _is there, which is entirely my fault and it has nothing to do with you, you've been nothing but great and entirely perfect to me this whole time, which is why i don't want to keep you here with me. you deserve someone so much better. you deserve to be loved as deeply and fully as you've loved me and i am so, so sorry that i couldn't do that for you."

logan takes off his glasses and wipes a couple of tears away.  
>"you know i would stay with you forever if you wanted me to." he whispers hoarsely, squeezing the hand of hers that was still clutching his.<p>

ally nods forlornly. "i know."

she watches out the window as his car drives away from the same spot that austin's had just a few hours ago.

and then there were none.

* * *

><p>the last few months of senior year blow by in what seems like a few seconds.<br>she spends most of her time with trish, dez, and occasionally logan, doing everything she could to avoid thinking about austin.

but, of course, he always finds some way to intrude back in on her life somehow.

he left her one voicemail in the entirety of his absence, about halfway through his tour.

"_i can't stop thinking about you… probably because every song i sing was written by you, but also because you're so important to me, ally. i'm so sorry about everything that's happened.. i just need to talk to you… just call me back when you get this, okay? take care, alls."_

she doesn't call back.

on the last night before graduation, he shows up out of the blue, knocking on her door at midnight.

"you're lucky my dad's over at his girlfriend's place tonight. he would've killed you for disturbing his beauty sleep."

austin grins sheepishly. "i was gonna go knock on your window, but i figured that would be too crappy-rom-com-ish."

ally shrugs passively. "pretty much the last few years of my life have been like a crappy rom-com. you might as well have done it."

"well, i also kinda forgot which window is yours,so."

ally scoffs, then sighs.

"austin, what are you doing here?"

"i needed to talk to you. you didn't answer my voicemail."

she folds her arms across her chest. "i didn't want to. i was mad at you. i _am_ mad at you."

austin nods. "you should be."

she looks him down for the first time in months. he's grown an inch or two since he left, probably (unless she shrank, which she hopes is not the case), his hair a little more sun-bleached blonde, his skin a little bit tanner. seeing him makes her want to throw up, or cry, or maybe hug him, and she doesn't know why.

she decides to hug him, wrapping her thin, pale arms around his broad shoulders. his skin is warm.  
>he slips his hands around her waist.<p>

"i missed you." she smiles beside herself.

he smells like laundry detergent.

he chuckles and presses a kiss to the top of her head.  
>"i missed you too, ally"<p>

* * *

><p>he watches her as she fixes them coffee at one in the morning.<p>

seeing her, for him, is like listening to an old favorite song and remembering all the lyrics without having to try. the rhythm of her inhaling and exhaling sounds like familiarity and the faded plaid of her robe looked like home.

miami was quiet, for once, and he could hear the chirping of the cicadas outside of ally's window.

"who did you go to prom with?" austin asks. dez had told him that ally and logan weren't together anymore, but that was about it.

"logan, technically." she responds as she pours the coffee into two marino high manatee mugs. "but only as friends. and trish and dez came with us, too. it was kinda a group thing." she explains.

she places a mug down in front of him and sits down across the table.

"thank you."

ally stares down into her coffee, not knowing what to tell him- not knowing where to begin.

"you know how i said that maybe we should start seeing other people?" he begins. "that was stupid."

she shakes her head. "no. no, it wasn't. it was good. it is good. i mean, look, we couldn't just have stayed hung up on each other for the rest of our lives."

austin raises an eyebrow skeptically. "really? cause, i mean… look where we are now."

ally laughs. "point taken."

"what are we gonna do?"

"i guess if we knew, we'd be doing it." she shrugs, giving him a sheepish grin.

"you know i'm still in love with you."

she doesn't respond, just stares out at the darkness of the sky outside her window.

"sorry if this sounds stupid," he starts. "but… i don't know. i guess i feel like part of me is always going to be in love with you. you're my first _real_ love, y'know?"

she nods. "no, no, it's- you're not stupid. i get it. but we can't let that hold us back from loving other people."

"you know what i always thought was so stupid? it's so stupid that no matter how much we love and care about each other, we're never going to be able to figure out a way to _be _with each other. sometimes, sometimes i feel like i love you so much that i can't be _with _you because then that causes like, fifty million other complications and i don't want things to be complicated, i just want to be in love with you… but i can't. but i also can't be in love with anybody _but _you." he says, words spilling out of him before he can even think about what he's saying.  
>tears start spilling out, splashing down his cheeks and landing in his coffee.<p>

he looks across the table and sees ally fighting back tears of her own.

he shakes his head. "i don't know.. i guess i just kept holding out hope that maybe we _were_ meant to be… that the universe would give us some way to figure out how to be together."

"we _were_ meant to be." ally says softly. "we were meant to be best friends. i don't know if we're meant to be together romantically, austin, and i don't know if we're ever going to figure it out, but- maybe there's a universe where we are. maybe there's another universe out there where there's a you and a me and we're together, happily, and maybe there's a universe where logan doesn't exist or maybe there's a universe where you're not a famous pop star and i'm not a songwriter but maybe there isn't! i don't know, austin, i don't even know what we're doing in this universe. but it doesn't matter, because i know that in any and every universe, i would find you and i would love you, somehow."

austin smiles sadly. "you're graduating tomorrow."

"and then it's off to college."

"stanford, right?"

she nods happily.

"i'm so proud of you." he grins at her.

"i'm proud of you too, austin."

* * *

><p>after the official end of austin's tour, they throw him a welcome-home party that serves double duty as ally's going-away party.<p>

(they always were fundamentally opposites, after all)

he sees her dancing with logan, her boyfriend, and he smiles. he's brought a date of his own, a girl named kelly whom he met while he was on tour. he doesn't know where this will go with kelly, and he doesn't know if he and ally will ever be able to be together in this universe or if logan is actually her soulmate and he was just the first love, but he knows that she's his best friend and he knows that he loves her, no matter what.

* * *

><p>it starts with a girl and it ends with a girl.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>an: fyi the end of this story (and the story in general but particularly the end) was inspired by **_**Maybe in Another Universe, I Deserve You **_**by Gaby Dunn which is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever and I think you should read it. **

**also guys i've officially spent over two years of my life on this archive i don't know if i'm proud or ashamed ?**

**anyways, hope y'all enjoyed!**

**happy valentine's day!**

**(:tessa:)**


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